


The Call

by welseykels



Series: Dragon Age: Mira Amell [8]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: F/M, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Referenced Broodmothers, The Calling
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-04
Updated: 2017-01-04
Packaged: 2018-09-14 19:39:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 938
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9199631
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/welseykels/pseuds/welseykels
Summary: In a universe where the Grey Wardens never found a cure to their Callings, the Hero of Ferelden, Mira Amell, finds that her own has come for her.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this almost a year ago after I had a nightmare about it one night, but have always been worried to post it because it's so completely different from anything I've ever done.
> 
> [Check out my writing masterpage on tumblr!](https://welseykels.tumblr.com/writing)

She first heard it in the quiet of the middle of the night, mixed in with Alistair’s soft breathing as he slumbered somewhere off in the Fade. She hadn’t been really sure what it is at first - at least she didn’t want to believe what it really was.

He'd always told her that the taint would take twenty or thirty years to catch up with a warden - a little less for those who served during a Blight. Never before had a warden lived after slaying an archdemon, not until she had walked away seemingly into the sunset and a happy end. At least that's how the tavern singers told her story now. She thought that she’d have at least over a decade with him - but for cheating immediate death, she's been given five years. _Five_.

She tried not to cry as her fingers brushed past his shoulder, his neck, his jaw, to cup his cheek. He smiles softly in his sleep and she wants to wail. _Does he hear it to?_ _Please don’t let him hear it too. Please, please, please.  She doesn’t believe in the Maker as he does, but she wants nothing more than to believe He will allow her love a longer walk upon this earth._

They'd had plans for when this was to happen - but they thought they would have time before... They thought they would have time to find a cure.  

With what they knew now - with what they had learned from Hespith those years ago while searching for Branka. Maker, she supposed a poem was what that horrible rhyme had been that the woman had chanted over and over in the deeps.  It was something that still played often in her nightmares, the words rolling through her mind when she woke in a cold sweat and screams.  She couldn't bear to end it all in the Deep Roads - not with what she was susceptible to, not with what she had witnessed not once, but twice with her own eyes.  She would not end her days as a mother to darkspawn, when she was already nearly barren for any other child. Barren for the child she sought so desperately with her husband, with the man she loved.  The thought of it made her tremble, giving birth to the creatures she had sworn to defend against, causing her vision to begin to blur.

Both she and Alistair had agreed that she would take the other option for wardens, the end she had urged the leader at Weishaupt to offer after she’d stopped both the Mother and the Architect from their plans. And Alistair had stated that he would do the same when his time came. She'd fought him on it - screaming matches in their quarters of the Vigil, he should have the death he had agreed to as a warden.  She wouldn’t deny him what his vows allowed him. He was in no more danger than a sword through his gut to end it all. If she were to go with him, it was likely that she would not be granted the peace given by steel through flesh. She would find something far worse down beneath the surface. But he refused to seek his end alone, refused for her to be alone for her own.

Instead they would venture into the small field, under the tree they adored to spend afternoons under, with the two small vials hidden in the safe in their quarters. They'd always hoped that if they had no other option - no cure, no salvation - that they would hear it at the same time. _But hope only goes so far_.

She would not cut his life short. The song was barely noticeable still, a sickening off-key hum in the back of her mind - her blood singing in tune with the cause of the next Blight, welcoming her to head below the surface and follow the call into the Deep Roads.

She tried to cover her ears, knowing it would do no good - it couldn't protect her from something inside. She didn't want it to grow louder. She didn't want to hear it. She wanted to think that this was all a bad dream - but she knew she was awake. Knew in the way she felt her husband’s hot breaths against her cheek, in the way the chill of her magic worked its way up her arms whenever she was afraid.

The tears started to fall then.

“Meer?” His voice, laced with sleep and pleasant dreams, which came so seldom to them that they were infinitely cherished, barely mumbled out to her.

Should she tell him? _Could she tell him?_

In the end she didn’t need to.  Even in the dim light of the twin moons, he could see the lines that grew from her lips - the veins beneath her skin darkening already as she had slept. The grey that had once been the green of her eyes catching the light and reflecting back at him.  It had come on fast, far faster than they had ever seen before.  Usually it took weeks, months, but perhaps this was another punishment for cheating death and the destruction of her soul.  She would have _days_.

“ _No, not yet_.”

It was the only words spoken between them that night.  He’d sat up in bed, back pressed to their wooden headboard and pulled her into his arms.  They’d both wept, fingers pressing hard into each other’s skin, afraid to let go. There’d always been tomorrow - _tomorrow we would find a cure_ \- but now their tomorrows were gone.  

 _Time had finally run out_.

_And she was terrified._


End file.
